I am trying to not be too hard on myself. I am trying to NOT say, Self, why is it that other people moved at the same time as you did and they are practically done with unpacking, and YOU, Self, are not? Slacker.
I am trying to remember that Other People are not me. Other People have packers to come pack for them, and movers to come move them. I had to pack it all myself, including trekking around to various grocery stores looking for boxes for a few weeks beforehand. I hired one guy for 6 hours (expensive, but worth it) and a van, and the majority of the moving was done by me with several friends and relatives helping. And I work full time so I am gone all day; the majority of my daily energy goes to dressing for work, commuting in this big city, and work work work, so I am tired in the evenings. Self, Other People are on their path, and I am on mine. Different paths.
Mostly though... I just don't have the physical strength/energy of some Other People. Correction: I have pretty good stamina and I am proud of the strong muscles I have after going to the gym regularly for the past few months. These were great help on Moving Weekend. But, I also have back problems. Pretty severe back problems. The doctors can find nothing wrong with me at all, but the pain is there, and it is intense. This week it feels as if two pieces of broken glass are rubbing together on my lower spine. Yet my spine is "perfect" according to the neurosurgeon/spine specialist. Not a thing wrong. Why is it, then, that yesterday when my alarm went off and I tried to scoot over in the bed to hit snooze I almost screamed in pain? I wasn't walking or standing. I was sleeping in a bed, and my mattress is not that old. I don't know what I can do at this point. Going to the gym and increasing my core strength has helped some but I am still in a lot of pain, daily. Standing, bending, carrying, shoving boxes around, all these things just hurt.
1) Come home from a commute on both a train and a bus, including walking, going down stairs, and standing to wait for the bus.
Have to immediately sit down for several minutes to take the pressure off my spine.
2) Take 2 big loads of garbage from last night's unpacking out to the dumpster. Not a lot of stairs, but still, carrying and walking and lifting, twice.
Have to sit down again.
3) Stare at the bookcases, and sigh. Once I get the books set up that will get a lot of boxes out of the way.
Have to go sit down again.
5) Food is ready so I go get it. Sit down to eat. Listen to music. Stare at bookcase and boxes of books. My friend Amelia came over on Sunday and dragged the boxes with books in them over to the bookcase area, so that was a big help. She also discovered my motorcycle jacket from my grunge phase in 1993 and squeed. She tried it on and admired herself so much that I told her to take it. It's on long term loan. She can give it back to me someday. (Even if she doesn't, I am ok with that, as long as she enjoys it.)
6) Get up and wash dishes, put them away, and clean up the kitchen a bit so it doesn't become a pigsty. Think about getting on my knees to scrub the bottom cabinets out so I can put things in there. Decide that would be a problem.
Have to go sit down again.
7) I've actually sorted most of my books by now and I have decided to try displaying them by color instead of by topic and size. Visually it looks pretty cool but the librarian in me frets at breaking up sets that go together because the spines are different colors. After dinner I sat on the floor and put more shelves into the bookcases and shelved the black books on the bottom.
8) Move a few baskets and bins into the rooms or areas where they actually need to go. Go through the Give Away Boxes I have set up and pull a bag of paperbacks for a friend who is coming to town on Saturday. At some point I want to get these now-full boxes into my car so I can take them to the Goodwill after I see my friends for shopping and lunch on Saturday out in the suburbs.
Now it's getting late, I am tired, and I need to get ready for work tomorrow. This includes finding something to wear (because most of my clothes are not unpacked), packing my lunch, and taking a shower (more standing).
It's not a complaint, just a reflection of my life right now. And I have always been a person who was just go, go, go, go, go when something was needed and it had to be done. I have always had to push through tiredness and sore muscles, because I lived alone and there was no one to do it all, just me. But now my back will not cooperate. I can't push past this pain. It's not like exercise pain, that gets better as you get stronger. The more I push, the worse this gets.
I'm feeling pretty glad none of the roommate situations I looked into last summer worked out for me. I don't know what a roommate would say about all my stuff just laying around and taking up space for so many days. It will be many more days or even weeks until I feel I've gotten a grip on the whole moving thing. Some people in this city move every year or so, just for the change. I think they are nuts!
Last Friday I was in a bad state. I called it homesickness but it turns out it was more like displacement. I wasn't so much wishing for my old place, as I was wishing I could be on autopilot, just a little. Everything here is so new. I am not even sure where my car is from day to day. If I need it, I have to go looking for it, rather than knowing it's in the garage every night. I have not yet figured out how to coordinate the CTA with the Metra so I'm at work on time. I have yet to go grocery shopping in my new neighborhood. And of course... the upstairs neighbors. They were again walking right over my head at 2:00am, and then again at 7:00am. They don't sleep, and they don't have jobs. The noise is the worst right over my bedroom. It makes me even more tired, and I have yet to sleep in on a weekend thanks to them.
Well the cure last Friday is the same as this Friday -- TO SWEAT. Friday is casual day at work, so I can wear my workout gear and then go to the gym right after I get home. I am still at my old gym too. Something a little familiar, a little welcome. I actually did not sweat too much last week, even though I was definitely using my muscles. The days of me feeling like I am going to collapse seem to be past me. I keep trying to intensify my workout to get back to that feeling. Now I can do the plank position a few times, including on my elbows (SO hard on the core). Last night when I sat on the floor to put books away, I felt the stretch and it felt good.
I am so glad I am enjoying the gym. I don't love every minute, but I love going, and I love the results, and I love seeing my progress and writing it on this here blog for later. Last year at this time I hated hated hated that gym, I hated going, I hated even being inside there, I hated the colors and how it smelled, I hated it. Now I like it and I would go more often, if I wasn't afraid of too much, too soon.
And I like my new neighborhood. On the (very) few days it's been nice out, it's a lovely place to be.
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